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Knobbly 2.0: One of History's Most Stunning Race Cars Is Reborn

Founded in 1954, Lister is one of the oldest racing car manufacturers in the world

Interior amenities were few and far between, and the reborn Knobbly retains that minimalism

The Lister Jaguar was Britain’s most successful big-engined sports racing car of the late 1950s

Jaguar's straight-six has a racing pedigree all its own

Those crude vents were a requirement to keep the engine from melting

Stirling Moss driving the Lister-Jaguar to victory at the 1958 Silverstone GP

In the late 1950s, one sports car leaped to the head of the pack in British racing, and 60 years later, Lister is making a comeback.

The U.K.-based racing company has been revived with the help of a handful of engineers, along with the company's founder, Brian Lister. And the flagship is the rebirth of the original Lister-Jaguar Knobbly, one of the most stunning racers of its time.

This new Knobbly – named for its rippled, wind-tunnel honed body – isn't really new at all. It's the same exterior design as the race car built in 1958, and that's for good reason. Lister wants the new Knobbly to be eligible to compete in historic races around the world, so the body, suspension, and engine are all period-correct.

Nestled between those arched fenders is a competition-grade 3.8-liter inline six – the exact same engine fitted to the blisteringly quick Jaguar D-Type and the five-time Le Mans wining XK120. The engine is good for 330 horsepower, rocketing the Knobbly from zero to 60 mph in 4.3 seconds – insanely quick for the time – and topping out at 181 mph.

Lister is only making 50 examples of the reborn Knobbly, and half of them are already sold, including a few fitted with a race-spec V8 pulled from the Chevrolet Corvette. And at £249,000 ($410k), that's a steal – original Listers are going for upwards of $2 million at auction.